Quotes from Rostam Batmanglij

I am a very big fan of Brian Eno, of his work as an artist and making his music, and as a producer. In some ways, I have looked to his career as a model for my own.

I work on music with different people, and I work on music on my own. That's my life.

I tend to use different microphones, different mic techniques, and different recording mediums - like analogue tape - that evoke multiple eras of recorded music at the same time.

I don't think teenagers in 2017 identify with heterosexuality, and that's a positive.

Well, I think that I have a complicated relationship with whiteness because oftentimes, I pass as white, and I recognize that. I would be disingenuous to pretend that I don't pass as white.

I don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

In the West we are constantly hit with music of Middle Eastern descent signifying terror, intrigue or sorrow.

A lot of what being a producer is, is giving people space. Like psychologically being there to help them realize what they're trying to do.

Shangri-La is one of the few studios in which you can sit in the control room and open a window behind you. You can feel the light and the air coming off the ocean. You can have a musical world in front of you and the natural world behind you.

I admire Brian Eno so much in how he seems to push the idea of less being more - his touch is to crack open a window and let the light in.

There are rules that are so blatantly broken on 'Contra,' like structures of harmony and texture.

The idea of the gay experience, it feels like a relic. I felt like in the '90s when we were watching the gay characters on 'The Real World,' there was definitely a gay experience that was distinct from a straight experience. If you talk to high schoolers in 2017, I don't know that is as much a part of how they experience a social dynamic.

As a person who doesn't identify as straight, any love song I write is contextualized by a queer identity.

I think as a producer, you're always sort of questioning if what you're contributing is something that an artist loves and elevates a song.

I'm as guilty as anyone else of listening to music track by track.

I guess my first instrument was the recorder when I was about five or six.

Throughout college I was getting better and better at making recordings, producing songs, making different kinds of beats.

I'm very aware of what, say, electric guitar recordings in the '60s sounded like.

I'm very conscious of the fact that I devoted my life to recording music, recordings and writing songs.

It took me some time to join the various streams of making music that was technically good and making music that made me feel good.

We thought there was also something that was humorous but at the same time powerful and deep about naming the album, 'Modern Vampires Of The City'.

It's easier for me to remember things based on the releases of albums. The year is such an arbitrary thing.

I'd like to make an album with Slack one day. I'd like to use it as a collaborative tool. I know about it because I have friends that work in tech, and I guess you can use it in any job.

I'm trying to get to a point where I tell people, if you want to get in touch with me, please don't rely on email. I don't want to be a slave to it.